


A virtue I lack

by orphan_account



Category: Supernatural
Genre: gratuitous drabbling, spoilers 8.21
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-03
Updated: 2013-05-03
Packaged: 2017-12-10 06:43:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/783009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is satisfactory; it's not full revenge, but it's a good step one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A virtue I lack

Crowley's true form is a wrinkled skinlike clinging thing, salty sweat smell lingering on it even after a thousand years of torture, even after rebirth into demonkind.

And though he says otherwise with his poor host's lips, Crowley is a devastatingly patient thing. Crowley came home with Hitler in his pocket at the end of World War II, not that he likes to brag too much. Crowley has collected almost five thousand deals, which is a metric fuckton for a crossroads demon. Humans die by the billion every day, sure, but the vast majority of them aren't bad enough to get dragged down, aren't good enough to get pulled up. Spirits tend more often to linger and get filtered into energy and are eventually reborn because nobody ever gave them the push they needed to become something noteworthy. Classism at its worst, really. Crowley used to be a nobody too, once, before he made his own deal. In his own way he likes to give back, to target the nobodies who wouldn't be going anywhere special if it weren't for selling their souls. 

Talent seeking is an art, after all. 

The husk of a memory of what a spirit once was, however, is not intimidating enough to properly hold Hell on the best day. He rules right now, rules what he can, through cunning and intimidation, bribery and intelligence. Crowley picks his battles always carefully. He understands the balance of power better than most, down in Hell, and he knows that he will never really manage to lord it up as King unless he pushes in the right places at the right times. 

That was why he'd made the offer in the first place, that was why he'd partnered with an angel while his advisor was still having conniptions at the very thought, and that was why, ultimately, he'd had to eat that mistake when Castiel decided to go off the deep end with power and threatened to screw Crowley as completely as he possibly could. Crowley resents the whole thing, as it turned out, but he especially loathes the arrogant condescension that came with it. 

From the instant Castiel had beat him to the punch-- oh, of course he'd planned to screw the angel over, he'd just thought that he was alone in lacking principle-- Crowley has been plotting about what to do when he demands reparations. So yes, he did intentionally leave out the part about probably getting killed or worse in the process of killing Dick Roman. A year in Purgatory has evidently cleared up Castiel's scatterbrained distraction, though coping isn't exactly the same as good-as-new: what matters is that Crowley can now, happily, take his sweet time exacting punishment on Castiel. He can track Castiel because Naomi is tracking Castiel. 

He eventually sees an opportunity, and when he's sure it's worth his time, takes it. 

In a Biggerson's, in the midst of senseless violence, Castiel is being held by two angels and Naomi. Crowley lets his bullets fly. They have the desired effect (dead angels), and the effect is very pretty(sometimes wounded angels, just as good), and Crowley puts one in Castiel just to see the flicker of shock as the angel gets to experience what this kind of pain feels like. This is good, this is satisfactory, but it's not everything. 

Crowley wants the angel tablet almost on principle. He wants to hold it hostage. He wants to kill Dean and Sam Winchester, and have them stay dead. More than all that, he wants to see Castiel suffer: so he doesn't cut the tablet out. He sinks his fingers in, and he grinds and digs and pokes and prods, and Castiel's ragged voice splits into the celestial register briefly as he bleeds Grace, overwhelmed with pain. 

It's a good step one, but it's not enough. 

Crowley figures he will have plenty of time to plot out step two.


End file.
